Download Hamlet by William Shakespeare (PDF) - Royalty Free Plays
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<strong>Hamlet</strong><br />
and then, you know,<br />
‘It came to pass, as most like it was--’<br />
The first row of the pious chanson will show you more; for look<br />
where my abridgment comes.<br />
[Enter four or five Players.]<br />
You are welcome, masters; welcome, all:--I am glad to see thee<br />
well.--welcome, good friends.--O, my old friend! Thy face is<br />
valanc’d since I saw thee last; comest thou to beard me in<br />
Denmark?--What, my young lady and mistress! By’r lady, your<br />
ladyship is nearer to heaven than when I saw you last, <strong>by</strong> the<br />
altitude of a chopine. Pray God, your voice, like a piece of<br />
uncurrent gold, be not cracked within the ring.--Masters, you are<br />
all welcome. We’ll e’en to’t like French falconers, fly at<br />
anything we see: we’ll have a speech straight: come, give us a<br />
taste of your quality: come, a passionate speech.<br />
1 PLAYER<br />
What speech, my lord?<br />
HAMLET<br />
I heard thee speak me a speech once,--but it was never acted;<br />
or if it was, not above once; for the play, I remember, pleased<br />
not the million, ‘twas caviare to the general; but it was,--as I<br />
received it, and others, whose judgments in such matters cried in<br />
the top of mine,--an excellent play, well digested in the scenes,<br />
set down with as much modesty as cunning. I remember, one said<br />
there were no sallets in the lines to make the matter savoury,<br />
nor no matter in the phrase that might indite the author of<br />
affectation; but called it an honest method, as wholesome as<br />
sweet, and <strong>by</strong> very much more handsome than fine. One speech in it<br />
I chiefly loved: ‘twas AEneas’ tale to Dido, and thereabout of it<br />
especially where he speaks of Priam’s slaughter: if it live in<br />
your memory, begin at this line;--let me see, let me see:--<br />
The rugged Pyrrhus, like th’ Hyrcanian beast,--<br />
it is not so:-- it begins with Pyrrhus:--<br />
‘The rugged Pyrrhus,--he whose sable arms,<br />
Black as his purpose, did the night resemble<br />
When he lay couched in the ominous horse,--<br />
Hath now this dread and black complexion smear’d<br />
With heraldry more dismal; head to foot<br />
Now is he total gules; horridly trick’d<br />
With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons,<br />
Bak’d and impasted with the parching streets,<br />
That lend a tyrannous and a damned light<br />
54<br />
<strong>Hamlet</strong><br />
To their vile murders: roasted in wrath and fire,<br />
And thus o’ersized with coagulate gore,<br />
With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus<br />
Old grandsire Priam seeks.’<br />
So, proceed you.<br />
POLONIUS<br />
‘Fore God, my lord, well spoken, with good accent and good<br />
discretion.<br />
1 PLAYER<br />
Anon he finds him,<br />
Striking too short at Greeks: his antique sword,<br />
Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,<br />
Repugnant to command: unequal match’d,<br />
Pyrrhus at Priam drives; in rage strikes wide;<br />
But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword<br />
The unnerved father falls. Then senseless Ilium,<br />
Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top<br />
Stoops to his base; and with a hideous crash<br />
Takes prisoner Pyrrhus’ ear: for lo! his sword,<br />
Which was declining on the milky head<br />
Of reverend Priam, seem’d i’ the air to stick:<br />
So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood;<br />
And, like a neutral to his will and matter,<br />
Did nothing.<br />
But as we often see, against some storm,<br />
A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still,<br />
The bold winds speechless, and the orb below<br />
As hush as death, anon the dreadful thunder<br />
Doth rend the region; so, after Pyrrhus’ pause,<br />
A roused vengeance sets him new a-work;<br />
And never did the Cyclops’ hammers fall<br />
On Mars’s armour, forg’d for proof eterne,<br />
With less remorse than Pyrrhus’ bleeding sword<br />
Now falls on Priam.--<br />
Out, out, thou strumpet, Fortune! All you gods,<br />
In general synod, take away her power;<br />
Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel,<br />
And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven,<br />
As low as to the fiends!<br />
POLONIUS<br />
This is too long.<br />
HAMLET<br />
It shall to the barber’s, with your beard.--Pr’ythee say on.--<br />
He’s for a jig or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps:--say on; come<br />
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